2017-02-20

Video above: Oaktree's Howard Marks Is Cautious, But Still Investing (February 9, 2017). Howard Marks, co-chairman at Oaktree Capital, discusses his firm's investment strategy and the importance of using caution as an investor in times of market uncertainty. He speaks with Bloomberg's Erik Schatzker on "Bloomberg Daybreak: Americas." (Source: Bloomberg)

Marks and his partners formed Oaktree Capital in 1995 with a focus on high-yield bonds, distressed debt, private equity, and other credit based strategies. Oaktree currently manages 22 separate debt funds, totaling over $100 billion dollars in assets under management. Oaktree's 17 distressed funds' returns have averaged over 19% per year (after fees) over the past 22 years.

Ritholtz has noted that "Marks had the foresight to set up an 11 billion dollar distressed fund (7B) raising capital from March 2007-08. By June 2008 they had called 12% of it; following the collapse of Lehman Brothers on September 15th 2008, they began putting half a billion dollars per week to work in the credit marks. They finished the year about 70% invested, deploying 6.5 billion dollars by years end."

“All you had to do to make money in the crisis – was have money to spend and the nerve to spend to it. You didn’t need caution, conservatism, risk control, patience selectivity, discipline, any of those things. All you needed was money & nerve. But not all the time, because sometime money and nerve will get you killed. One of the keys to investing is to know which is which.”--Howard Marks

Marks may be best known for his Chairman’s Memos that he has been writing since 1990, noting that he spent the first decade printing them, inserting them into envelopes and physically mailing them off into the world, with zero response. Finally, with his January 2000 letter “Bubble.com,” there appeared to be evidence that people were actually reading them. At Warren Buffett’s urging, Marks wrote the book The Most Important Thing.Tweets by OaktreeDomain Mondo Editor's Note:last MacroView post (Feb 16, 2017) at least for awhile.feedback & comments via twitter @DomainMondoFollow @DomainMondo